GOP Fighting For Money From Stimulus They Opposed

House Republicans, as a group, may take great pride in the goose egg they offered President Obama’s stimulus package. But now the unanimous opposition is struggling to bring that money home.
Republicans will be working hard to make sure the money they opposed ends up benefiting their home districts, highlighting the political tightrope they walk in [...]

Conservatism Is Dead

After George W. Bush’s two terms, conservatives must reckon with the consequences of a presidency that failed, in large part, because of its fervent commitment to movement ideology: the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy; the blind faith in a deregulated, Wall Street-centric market; the harshly punitive “culture war” waged against liberal “elites.” That these precepts should [...]

Moderate Republicans may be in big demand in Senate

There are fewer of them, but Democrats may need them to break potential GOP filibusters.
Their ranks have dwindled in recent elections. Those who remain in politics have been marginalized by their own party, which has inexorably veered to the right over the last generation.  But this beleaguered minority has an opportunity to wield outsized influence [...]

Poof goes the GOP

Republicans have been rejected by American voters in the last two national elections. They’ve lost the House, the Senate and the White House. They have just about given up on the African-American vote. More Hispanics turned away from them this year.  Yet some of the people who want to run the national Republican Party think [...]

RNC Chief Concedes That GOP Is Bereft Of Ideas, Vows Change Of Direction

In a frank and private memo sent today to Republican National Commitee members, the RNC chairman acknowledges that the GOP has grown too addicted to ideology, places politics before policy, and is bereft of ideas — and that it’s imperative that the party shift towards a genuine effort to develop concrete policy solutions to people’s [...]

GOP Looks to Louisiana’s Governor

Jindal May Prove To be Republicans’ Version of Obama
Like the president-elect, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is young (37), accomplished (a Rhodes scholar) and, as the son of Indian immigrants, someone familiar with breaking racial and cultural barriers. He came to Iowa to deliver a pair of speeches, and his mere presence ignited talk that [...]

A GOP Dirty Trickster Has Second Thoughts

Consultant Roger Stone, the notorious political hitman who helped George W. Bush prevail in the 2000 Florida recount, tells The Daily Beast that he wishes he hadn’t.
There have been many times I’ve regretted it,” Stone told me over pizza at Grand Central Station. “When I look at those double-page New York Times spreads of all [...]

More Bad News for the Republicans

Wall Street is not the only place where stocks are falling. The stock of the Republican party has gone from “bad to worse” in the last month according to a Gallup poll conducted Nov. 13-16. Sixty-one percent of those surveyed had an unfavorable view of the GOP, the highest since Gallup began taking this measure [...]

Senate GOP in big funk

A day after losing Ted Stevens’ seat, along with their best hope for getting Joe Lieberman to cross over, Senate GOP leaders preached party unity as the key to surviving the Obama years.  If that doesn’t work, there’s always psychotherapy.  Down to 42 seats with two still at risk, Senate Republicans are in a deep [...]

Gingrich says GOP is outmatched

How bad off is the Republican Party right now? Ask Newt Gingrich.
“The Republican Party right now is like a midsize college team trying to play in the Superbowl,” Gingrich told me Wednesday. “It is pretty hard to say our losses were because of John McCain’s campaign. McCain performed way above plausibility compared to where the [...]